Author Archives: Ike Brannon

Summary GE Appliances has been a major contributor to the Kentucky economy for over a century. As a manufacturer, its impact on the overall economy extends far beyond what it produces: It creates thousands of jobs within the state and adds billions of dollars to the regional and national economy. We estimate that the company, […]

Jared Whitley, MBA, and Ike Brannon, PhD Capital Policy Analytics December 2017 Introduction The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) needs to achieve a modicum of financial stability if it is going to perform the services that it is constitutionally empowered to take on. However, these days it is teetering on insolvency: In the last decade[…..]

This article originally appeared in the Cato Blog. Click here to read the full article. By Ike Brannon and Gordon Gray Ike Brannon of Capital Policy Analytics and Gordon Gray of the American Action Forum warn against an attempt in the lame-duck session to revive ‘‘orphan’’ tax breaks not made permanent at the end of[…..]

This article originally appeared in the Cato Blog. Click here to read the full article. By Ike Brannon Should big-city governments be giving valuable city property to its wealthy residents for a pittance? The answer to that is not dependent upon political party or ideology, it would seem, yet it remains the standard practice nearly[…..]

This article originally appeared in Regulation Magazine. Click here to read the full article. By Sam Batkins and Ike Brannon A good many politicians have elevated the need to reduce income inequality as the paramount purpose of economic policy in the immediate future. There are many ways to pursue such a goal, of course, but[…..]

This podcast originally appeared in the Cato Daily Podcast. Click here to view original posting. Featuring Ike Brannon Market pricing of on-street parking could save commuters time and energy, but locals don’t like it. Ike Brannon comments.

This article originally appeared in The Hill. Click here to read the full article. By Ike Brannon It seems as if everyone has woken up to the problem of opioid abuse at once and wants to do something about it. In March, Politico assembled a working group to “confront the opioid epidemic.” In May, New[…..]

This article originally appeared in Deseret News. Click here to read the full article. By Jared Whitley Puerto Rico My heart’s devotion Let it sink back in the ocean Always the hurricanes blowing Always the population growing And the money owing… So begins Puerto Rican darling Anita in West Side Story’s signature song, “America.” Little[…..]

This article originally appeared in the Hill. Click here to read the full article. By Logan Albright Congress has been trying to tread a very fine line on the path to rescuing Puerto Rico from the fiscal mess it’s gotten itself into. On the one hand, conservative Republicans will not tolerate anything resembling a bailout.[…..]

This article originally appeared in the Weekly Standard. Click here to read the full article. By Ike Brannon Following the reintroduction of the Puerto Rico debt legislation this week, it appears that the battle over how to restructure the insolvent island may soon be headed for a Congressional vote. The basic problems with previous approaches[…..]

This article originally appeared in Bloomberg Government. Click here to read the full article. By Ike Brannon and Mark Calabria When a family buys a home in the United States, they typically finance the purchase by obtaining a loan at a local bank or mortgage broker, which will take that 30-year promise of monthly payments[…..]

This article originally appeared in the Hill. Click here to read the full article. By Ike Brannon Republicans have approached the looming fiscal crisis in Puerto Rico with the goal of returning the island to solvency without costing taxpayers any money. Unfortunately, the plans being discussed by the House of Representatives of late will not[…..]

This article originally appeared in Real Clear Markets. Click here to read the full article. By Ike Brannon Republicans have approached the looming fiscal crisis in Puerto Rico with the goal of returning the island to solvency without costing taxpayers any money. Unfortunately, the plans being discussed by the House of Representatives of late will[…..]

This article originally appeared in the Quad City Times. Click here to read the full article. By Jeff Patch and Ike Brannon Why Iowans should care about a Puerto Rico bailout. What’s the matter with Puerto Rico, and why should Iowans care?… It’s become increasingly clear that Congress will soon need to provide some sort[…..]

This article originally appeared in Crain’s Chicago Business. Click here to read the full article. By Ike Brannon and Michelle Hanlon It’s become increasingly clear that Congress will need to provide some sort of assistance to the bereft government of Puerto Rico. The island has been in recession for a decade and holds $72 billion[…..]

This article originally appeared in the Weekly Standard. Click here to read the full article. By Ike Brannon Everyone is in agreement that the federal government needs to address Puerto Rico’s insolvency sooner rather than later. What that would entail is where the consensus breaks down. The big battle to date has been whether the[…..]

This article originally appeared at the Weekly Standard. Click here to read the full article. By Ike Brannon Last week the White House released a first draft for what it ultimately intends to be a report card for the nation’s colleges. And there’s no way this effort will improve the lot of the typical college[…..]

This article originally appeared in The Weekly Standard. Click here to read the full article. By Ike Brannon President Obama may be walking into a trap of his own side’s devising as he departs for the latest climate action summit in Paris. If Republicans can suppress their innate ability to snatch defeat from the jaws[…..]

This article originally appeared at the Weekly Standard. Click here to read the full article. By Ike Brannon In 2005, the King-Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles, which served primarily low-income African American and Latino patients, closed its trauma unit. In 2001, D.C. General Hospital, the only public medical facility in the nation’s capital, closed[…..]

This article originally appeared at The Weekly Standard. Click here to read the full article. By Ike Brannon The answer is climate change—at least if the question is “why should we keep a costly and ineffective government agency.” The Obama Administration’s recent repurposing of a heretofore moribund government agency as a tool to soften the[…..]

This article originally appeared in the Manhattan Institute. Click here to read the full article. By Bryan Weaver and Ike Brannon Last winter, a full week after the final snowstorm of the season, most of the cars parked on our block, in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C., sat untouched. It wasn’t the snow that[…..]

This article originally appeared at The Hill. Click here to read the full story. By Ike Brannon The government monopoly on money is a relatively recent phenomenon. Until the creation of the Federal Reserve just over 100 years ago, private banks could issue notes backed by gold that functioned akin to money. The era of[…..]

This article originally appeared at Real Clear Markets. Click here to read the full article. By Ike Brannon The New York Times recently wrote about Amazon’s recent expansion into the realm of services by creating various local marketplaces for its customers to find plumbers or handymen to do a variety of services that the retailer[…..]

This article originally appeared at the Federalist. Click here to read the full story. By Ike Brannon I should start this essay by proudly announcing that one of my parents has no college degree and the other was abandoned by his parents as a toddler. Neither fact has proven to be the least bit relevant[…..]

This article originally appeared in Regulation. Click here to read the full article. By Ike Brannon Is Peoria, Ill., special? Of course it is, says I—along with the thousands of other people who, like me, hail from the central Illinois community. It’s a great city with wonderful people, as well as a rich culture and[…..]

This article originally appeared in the Journal Star. Click here to read the full article. By Ike Brannon The battle in Peoria over whether — or how — to allow food trucks has two, well-delineated sides. Proponents celebrate the greater variety of food options they would bring to downtown diners, while the established restaurants argue[…..]

This article originally appeared at WPRI. Click here to read the full article. By Ike Brannon A productive dialog about poverty in America must recognize the need for transparency about policies aimed at addressing the issue. Milwaukee’s Public Policy Institute seems to do the opposite by appealing to the conclusions of a “sophisticated microeconometric model”[…..]

This article originally appeared at The Hill. Click here to read the full story. By Ike Brannon Drug costs represent a large and growing share of health care costs and for good reason: Developing a new drug and proving it safe and effective is more expensive than ever before, and the cutting-edge drugs of late[…..]

This article originally appeared in Regulation. Click here to read the full article. By Sam Batkins and Ike Brannon In these pages four years ago (“Obfuscation at the EPA,” Summer 2011) we announced our discovery of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new methodology for ascribing job gains to costly new regulations: a sleight-of-hand whereby it[…..]